From the assassination of Tsar Alexander II to the | 11 | v2 | Russia

The assassination of Tsar Alexander II placed Alexander III on the throne. As
the new head of state, he immediately instigated a crackdown on public debate. He
passed a statute of exceptional measures which gave the secret police free run of the
sovereign’s subjects. Zuckerman (1996: 13) concludes from a careful reading that
‘the political police by the mid-1880s already operated beyond the control of the
regular bureaucracy’. These measures remained in force until the October Revolution, Furthermore, the Censorship Statute of 1828 was tightened up in 1885, and
yet again in 1890. During the 1880s, romantic nationalists dominated the debate
about Europe almost by default. During the 1890s, however, the heavy pan-Slavism
which dominated the position was challenged by the more spiritual outlook of
Vladimir Solov’ev, philosopher. In 1909, when the ranks of the romantic nationalist position somewhat tentatively received an attachment of collapsed liberals, the
spiritual faction of the position was strengthened, although the more xenophobic
faction remained strong.
When romantic nationalism had to let go of its dominant position at the end of

the 1880s, it was because of the pressure from the arguing populists and Marxists.
The populist commando that was behind the assassination of Alexander II in 1881
had seen it as a last-ditch stand against the introduction of capitalism in Russia, and
had even given vent to the idea that public sentiment would react by propelling
them to the centre of the political debate.1 If these particular populists left the
debate with a bang, however, other populists were barely able to exhale a whimper
as they saw themselves marginalised. Nevertheless, the populists came back to argue
their case against Russia’s copying of European-style industrialisation against the
Marxists and all other comers.
The liberals and the embryonic Marxists were also marginalised from the debate

of the 1880s. It speaks volumes about the state’s attitude that in 1884 not only
Marx’s works, but also Mill’s and Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations were banned

from public libraries. The liberals kept their heads down and their work in the
zemstvo movement up. In 1894, as Alexander III died and Nicholas II acceded,
they petitioned for a role on the national level, only to be rebuffed by the new
tsar. European-style representative government was no more on his agenda than it
had been on his father’s, he confirmed.
By the 1890s, however, the Marxists had hogged the centre of the public

debate. In a move that showed the Marxist affinity, but also their operative superiority, to the liberals, it was a Marxist who took it upon himself to stand up to the
tsar. In an open letter, he warned that the state, by failing to grant a political role to
the public, was courting disaster. His words were carried out only ten years later,
when, as Russia was losing a war against Japan, a public uprising did indeed take
place. The uprising forced a new bout of reforms from the state. At that time,
however, there had already occurred a realignment of the liberal and the Marxist
positions, and the latter was itself facing a split.
The realignment of the Marxist and liberal positions took place at the beginning

of the 1900s, when the so-called ‘legal Marxists’ broke away from the Marxist
position and made their way to the core of the liberal position, where they were
instrumental in setting up the Kadet Party. Incidentally, in 1909 a number of the
same people were to stage a half-hearted break with the liberal position and tentatively
join the ranks of the romantic nationalists.
The Marxist position split into a Menshevik position and a Bolshevik position in

1903, and a third position represented by Parvus and Trotskiy hovered on the
margin of their internal debates about Europe. The break between the Mensheviks
and the Bolsheviks concerned how thoroughly Russia should copy European
models, and how squarely one should delineate a ‘progressive Europe’ from a
‘stagnant Europe’.
It was noted earlier how, by studying Russian debate in its entirety, one comes

upon the occasional opportunity to fill in a blank spot left by the lack of rapport
between historians and historians of ideas. One case in point is the claim made by
some students of the pan-Slavic romantic nationalists in the 1880s, who seem to
think they were in cahoots with the ‘official nationality’ of the state.2 This is not
necessarily warranted. The state did not at this time act as it had done in 1948,
when it tried to incorporate parts of the romantic nationalist position into its own.
In fact, the state’s crackdown on political debate was not followed by any new
initiatives at all. Leading official ideologists like Konstantin Pobedonostsev, directorgeneral of the Holy Synod, saw themselves as caretakers of official nationality. The
fluid foreign policy situation in arenas such as the Balkans and at the 1878 Congress
of Berlin must also have been powerful incentives not to encourage the designs of
the pan-Slavists.3